#how to fix a relationship

[lazylittledragon]

they just got to have a sleepover and nothing bad ever happened at all

[just-some-user-hunny]

Nikto is chopping wood when it hits you. You're watching from your back porch door, a porcelain mug of hot chocolate cradled in your warm palms.

It's cold- far too cold for Nikto to be chopping wood in your garden right now. A thick layer of frost blanketing everything in sight- in which he had scraped your car for you earlier this morning whilst you were still in bed. He's still in his sleeping clothes; his thin black shirt that stuck to his body in a thick sleeve or fabric, and those baggy grey sweatpants that hung low on his hips. He's still refused to let you stitch the hemming- which is frayed and worn. Insisting that it is no use fixing it. There's no fixing it, llubov. I'll let it fray and throw it later. No use.

It was certainly a sight. He had drunk his tea down quickly once he noticed your shivering shoulders. Wrapped you up in that fluffy cream nightgown of yours, and set out to fill the fireplace. A silent promise to keep you warm. To provide. He had shot you a stern look at the sight of you lingering in the doorway- your pyjamas shorts and lack of slippers irking him. You wanted to roll your eyes at him. Used to his picking. You are a little warm soft thing. You need to stay warm.

"you're acting like a husband". You quip softly. Playfully, that smile that could warm butter on your pretty lips. "Do you want to be my husband, Andre?".

"yes".

Nikto's sincere raspy voice is sincere as he answers immediately- stunning you into silence. Glancing up at you to fix you an intense stare as he split the log with his hands. Something soft and eager in his eyes. Apprehensive on his own behalf, but filled with longing.

"you'll always be warm". He vows. Eyes filled with something- devotion. So tremendous, that it rattles you to the bone. His eyes meet yours, and you're not sure you can look away. Can't find your hands to sever the line. Pinning you down. He makes the first move- leaving the axe by the tree stump, shoes crunching in the glittering frosted grass. Approaching you like a weary hound.

"then in that case, may I mend these then?". You mumble. Now shy, your heart quivering at the intensity in his face. His hand meets yours as it brushes over the frayed hem of his sweatpants- a warm, halting hold. An unsure pause, you think... Before his shoulders relax a little, and his fingers wiggle softly between yours to melt into an embrace of hands. A gesture so sweet, so unsure and new to him, it was his turn to fluster. Feline eyes wandering from your eyes to your fingers clasped with his.

"yes. I... Let's try".

[juicegremlin]

they're so "sisters pitted against each other by their manipulative father who bond over how majorly he sucked ass after he's gone"

[vaguely-concerned]

the more I play the more I think lucanis basically knows it's illario who betrayed him right from the beginning (he's had a year in the ossuary to think. not that many people knew where he was going. when you ask him 'did Illario know you'd be on that ship' his only answer is the hardest flattest 'yes' you ever heard). so it's not so much about figuring out who the traitor is (because that's ludicrous. we all know. immediately. they didn't really bother to hide it lmao) as about methodically closing off every single avenue of denial lucanis has clung to that whole time with as much or little gentleness as you might prefer until he has no choice but to admit it. because the moment he has to admit it, he'll have to do something -- feel something -- about it. and that's such a catastrophic event in lucanis' inner landscape (he has had TWO people in this whole entire world up until now and will do anything to hold on to them with a heartbreaking child-like desperation, even at and especially through the detriment of his own self) that he'd rather just. not. what if we quite simply. didn't. what if we just stayed here in the emptiness where we can both pretend you didn't hurt me in a way I should never forgive. I have so much practice in that with caterina already it's always worked out great for everyone so far. (press x to fucking doubt but that's trauma logic for you lol)

after everything illario did, so much of the storm of lucanis' emotions around it is 'what the FUCK did you get yourself tangled up in this time and how do I get you out of this mess safely'. what's worse: the fact that your brother murdered you, or that he put himself in horrible danger doing so and thus exposed you to the risk of losing him forever. lucanis' heart certainly has an opinion here and it's fucking unhinged (affectionate)

the themes of dissociation in lucanis' character in general makes me feel nuts. allllll these contradictory messy things he needs to cut off from each other because they can't coexist or be easily reconciled inside him. but all remain stubbornly true separately anyway and will have their due one day. love and resentment. tenderness and fear and rage. terror and longing. love and freedom don't coexist. the burned out golden child anthem is playing in the background. he was always caterina's favourite and he has to keep striving to deserve that dubious honour with every breath he takes and then, presumably, mercifully, some day he will die and be excused and can rest. and until now he's suppressed all the -- natural, healthy, protective! -- negative feelings that threaten the few attachment relationships he actually has, at the cost of ever actually having his needs for connection and safety met and leaving his core self imprisoned and compromised. and spite goes 'what. no. that's dumb fuck that' (*spite voice* I do not understand that and even if I did I would not respect it) and does not allow him to fall back into that, which I think is what saves his life, ultimately. it took being possessed by a demon for lucanis to even contemplate telling anyone he loves 'no' in any way, but hey. whatever gets you there right lol

lucanis is dealing with the freeze response allll the way down baby. and he was even before the ossuary, that just turbo powered it and brought it to a breaking point way before it could happen naturally. but something was going to break eventually no matter what, and I'm just glad that in the end, through the power of friendship and also pure spite, it doesn't have to be him

[yustinamishka]

Father I had a dream That everything was well.

[calamaricollie]

Behold, my sappiest (and longest) Lari comic yet, I hope ya'll enjoy some tooth-rottingly sweet fluff UvU

More of me rambling under the cut:

Honestly I was so worried about posting this one, I wrote it when I was really needing some comfort so it turned out very sweet, less humorous than my other shitten stuff, but hey if you've watched and liked my animatic that's what you're here for anyways >:)

As much as I love feral Nari I just love writing him being all soft and chilled out tbh, this cat has been fully domesticated over years of TLC (Tender Lamb Care), I just hope others like it as much as I do too :p

[tallykale]

a bit of my postcanon vision

i heart people arguing

[pairingbrainrot]

[fridgrave2-0]

hehe ghost-turbo haunting felix au

turbo is connected to the last piece of his code in the whole arcade - a trophy he gifted to felix in mid 80s as a symbol of him genuinely caring about their relationships on par with being the best racer. felix also gave him one of his medals and both kept their gifts next to other rewards, but when roadblasters and turbotime were unplugged, the medal was gone with everything else

now, after burning in cola-lava turbo is basically dead, but scraps of his code still were intertwined with the trophy (after all, it was his first winner's cup, but felix never knew about it), giving turbo an opportunity to exist as a shadow incapable of interacting with anything and anyone besides felix, who kept the trophy even after the roadblasters incident

also I went crazy in tags, feel free to check them out

[solarmorrigan]

oooh. fic requests! how about 6 - fight or 19 - allergies for steddie?

Hello! I'm sorry it took so long to get to this one, but I hope it's alright! I went with:

6. Fight - Steddie

cw: implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced domestic violence, unhealthy relationship dynamics (not between Eddie and Steve)

-

The most frustrating thing about fighting with Steve is that he doesn’t fight. Not really.

Sure, he’ll poke and he’ll prod and he’ll snip and he’ll snap; he’ll dole out bitchy, passive aggressive comments and roll his eyes and sigh pointedly, but the moment things get heated, the moment an argument gets real, it’s just–

“Fine. Fine,” Steve snaps, tossing his hands up with an exasperated huff. “You’re right, okay? I’m– I’m sorry.”

And at first, Eddie had always felt so vindicated, so flush with the triumph of winning an argument, that it had taken him a while to realize that it felt– wrong. That Steve—so confident, so sure in his opinions, so willing to stand up to people when he has something to defend—would just give in without a fight– it feels wrong.

So Eddie had tried to pay attention – really pay attention. They don’t fight often, but when an argument inevitably does crop up, Eddie always wins. Rather, Steve always lets him. He never raises his voice, never gets in Eddie’s face, never really even makes counterarguments. He cedes to Eddie’s points and then subsides and it’s– it’s infuriating, because Eddie doesn’t understand.

“Don’t do that,” Eddie growls, tugging a frustrated hand through his hair.

“Don’t– what? Don’t apologize?” Steve asks incredulously.

“No!” Eddie bursts out. “Not if you don’t mean it!”

“Excuse me?” Steve draws back, offended. “What the hell do you want me to do to prove I’m sincere? Get on my knees and fucking grovel?”

“That’s not–” Eddie leaves off with a frustrated noise, trying hard to keep his tone level. “I don’t want to win an argument just because you let me. I don’t want you to apologize just because you think it’s what I want to hear.”

“I’m not letting you win,” Steve says quickly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You are, though. You do. Every time. You won’t actually engage, you just say I’m right and then clam up and that’s it,” Eddie says.

Steve levels him with a look of disbelief. “So– what, you want me to yell at you? You want me to tell you that you’re wrong?”

“I want–” Eddie pinches the bridge of his nose, taking a second to gather his thoughts. “I want you to feel like you’re allowed to argue with me. I don’t want you to just give in and then resent me or something.”

“I don’t resent you, Eddie,” Steve says with a roll of his eyes.

“No?” Eddie pushes. “How many times have we gone to bed after an argument with me perfectly satisfied, thinking I’ve won, while you’re actually still mad at me?”

“That’s– I don’t…” Steve shifts uncomfortably. “If I’m still mad, that’s my problem. I can just get over it.”

“But that’s exactly what I mean!” Eddie insists. “That shit builds up! And besides, what if you’re the one who’s really right? I might actually be wrong, and you should tell me. Or maybe there’s some kind of, like, compromise we can reach, I don’t know! I don’t want you to be afraid to push back – I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Steve says, jaw jutting out stubbornly when Eddie fixes him with a considering look. “I’m not. I’m just– how long before yelling turns into a screaming match? How long before it turns into throwing shit around, or– or shoving each other, or worse?”

“Steve…” Eddie murmurs, the last of his heated frustration draining away, leaving a clammy kind of dismay in its place. “Steve, I would never do any of those things to you.”

“I know,” Steve says, and it sounds like he means it. “I know that. But what if I–”

“No,” Eddie says firmly, because he thinks he understands now – Steve isn’t afraid of him, he’s afraid of himself. Afraid of turning into everything he’d been raised around: the blowout arguments between his parents, his mom’s petty destruction of his dad’s things, his dad’s frustration turned back on Steve, a cycle of violent familial bullshit that Steve is determined to break free from, even if it means saying that he’s wrong every time. Eddie comes forward, grabbing Steve’s hands; he can’t even remember what they’d been arguing about moments before, but he knows he doesn’t care anymore. “You would never do that. I know you, Steve, you are nothing like that.”

Steve looks down at their joined hands, blinking rapidly. “This– you… You’re more important than winning. Than any stupid argument,” he says.

“That’s exactly why we should have stupid arguments,” Eddie says, grinning a little when that gets a choked laugh out of Steve. “I’m serious. Let’s have stupid, petty arguments so they don’t turn into big ones. I swear I’m not going to stay mad if you get on my ass about not doing the dishes.”

Slowly, Steve nods. He doesn’t entirely look like he believes Eddie, but that’s fine. It’s always been like this – Steve unwilling (or unable) to believe that someone will love him if he doesn’t make it easy for them. Eddie’s been breaking that down, bit by bit, and this is no different. This is no chore.

“I’ll still love you even when I’m angry. Even when you’re angry,” Eddie promises. “I just love you, full stop.”

Steve nods again, more certain this time as he looks up to meet Eddie’s eyes. “I love you, too,” he says, because he always, always says it back, which suits Eddie just fine.

He figures if they can agree on that much, every other disagreement will be a breeze.

[milkamel]

Are there any facts regarding the Slumbering truth? I'm quite interested. How did Shadow treat Healer after realizing that he is getting attached?

Hmm I should start from the beginning here I think-

At first Shadow Milk was far from being nice towards Healer, treating him like entertainment and a toy, wishing to break him down or just venting out his frustrations (basically veeery toxic, poor Healer). Cause hey, this is someone who 'stole' his soul jam. And now this 'thief' is pathetic, weak and without memories, it'd be a shame to just crumble him or not play around with his prey. And Smilk still needs PV's memories back to have full powers, but he doesn't want to do it the boring way. He wants to see what his other half is capable of even in this weak state.

But of course, he got attached. Healer has struck something within him that no one dared to touch before, they had some things in common, Smilk started to see himself in that sweet Healer. And Healer started to act a bit differently too, instead of fearing him he'd smile at him, talk to him with genuine friendliness and even playfully smacked him with a staff a few times when he tried to intimidate him, the audacity! The lack of fear or blind obedience intrigued Shadow Milk until he realized he didn't even want that power so much, he liked Healer's company even if he found his kindness naive and foolish. He liked Healer a lot more than he dared to admit.

He didn't want Healer to regain his memories anymore. He didn't need the soul jam that much, his own half was more than enough to use his powers. After all if Healer remembered he'd surely leave him and he'd find out what a terrible beast Shadow Milk was. There's no way he'd be so kind after that and would be willing to stay, he'd most likely try to seal Shadow Milk away again and Smilk would be stuck for another millenia again. And Smilk already shared way too much about himself than the other should've known.

So he decided to act in the only way he knew, manipulate Healer into staying, trying to make sure Healer avoided anything that could trigger him to remember or make his soul jam resonate. He'd manipulate his current memories, make his dreams into nightmares just in hopes of making him stay. It should've been easy with how vulnerable Healer was to his influence.

..Unless Healer is not so innocent and oblivious as it might seem? Who knows..

[vaguely-concerned]

I really really like that lucanis reaches the 'there must be some way through this' realization 'off camera', so to speak, while presumably looking at rook explaining the situation to spite. it just. hits right. he gets that moment to himself after 'this place is a nightmare, why would I want to stay here' to come back into focus, to gather himself and think it through in peace, outside of the demands of anyone’s gaze (including the player’s!), while rook takes care of spite’s confusion and urgency and distress as he can’t himself in this shattered state. they're inside his soul, but he still gets that moment of privacy, with rook and spite there and supporting but not intruding. idk there's just something so good and right-feeling about it. rook's presence in lucanis' mind at its most vulnerable and frozen could have felt SO invasive if the quest wasn't written as skillfully as it is, and I get skeeved out by that kind of thing incredibly easily so it's a testament to how well it's done that it always feels safe and supportive. lucanis has had both his bodily and psychological (slash spiritual/existential) integrity and autonomy violated so brutally and repeatedly, and having even the way the camera perceives him here grant him the dignity and respect and privacy of soul he hasn’t experienced in a long time… it’s a whole thing huh. No wonder it’s taken me a while to put it into words lol 

(also what a contrast to what solas and rook have got going on, and what a sly way to slide the point of comparison in there to build to the thematic whole. the solas version of this IS of course wildly invasive and skeeves me out but in the intended delighted horror movie way. solas, too, was let into someone’s soul through the cracks in the wake of a traumatic event, and he IMMEDIATELY sought to turn it to his own benefit and use that trauma as a weapon against them fhdsja I’m sorry but it’s just such a character-revealing instinct for him to act on without hesitation and I love how terrible he is, it’s all so unforgivably premeditated and consistent.

rook acting out of the desire to make sure lucanis is ok vs. solas going ‘well. When life gives you oops killed my friend, make dead friend poisoned lemonade and make his loved ones drink it. this sunk cost fallacy isn’t going to perpetuate itself’ is such a neat contrast and it’s not in your face about it but it’s still there, deep and solid down in the thematic narrative. rook doesn’t do anything to or in lucanis’ mind, really — they negotiate their way through the layers of defense and are let through, and they help him make the whole thing more explicable, but they never exert any force or go rooting around for anything that doesn’t present itself to them first. solas goes about gathering ammo for when he's going to nothing personel kid this person from like the first moment fhdskh doesn't waste a second before he's on that gaslight gatekeep girlboss grind. the fact that the game goes out of its way to show there IS a respectful, non-selfish and kind version of this process makes what solas is doing even more deliciously awful (glee) and rook and lucanis’ relationship (platonic, romantic, whatever it might be in any given playthrough) all the more moving to me)

[ewwww-what]

Her baby boy.

[voidshrub]

None of you can convince me that Spy didn't come clean to Scout at some point about being his dad and them having a rollercoaster of rough patches and relationship fixing thoughout the years until they ended up happy with each other doing father-son activities to catch up with stolen time and the only reason Spy didn't tell Tanya that he's her grandpa is because he's still WORKING as a SPY he still had his BALACLAVA ON entering Jeremy's house and he wants to keep his grandchildren SAFE YOU CAN'T TELL ME JEREMY DOESN'T KNOW YOU CAN'T YOU CANNOT I WILL CRY A THOUSAND THOUSAND TEARS FOREVER AND EVER LET ME HAVE THIS ON MY KNEES SHAKING AND PLEADING

[zylphiacrowley]

memento vivere

<previous - next>

[luminique]

pulling a page out of lnds book rn as in by using the reflection in lighter’s sunglasses to fix your lipstick teehee haha unless…..

or maybe the side mirror on his bike. a mirror is a mirror and if he’s parked, no one in sight, it’s okay to tilt and use it as he watches you. he has made it very clear that you are always beautiful to him but nothing is more telling than when his eyes are on you. even with those shades on, they do little to hide his feelings for you. at first, he did used to come back with some sort of rebuttal when you’d catch him and tease him for it. now though, he just accepts it with a smirk on his face.

one last check in the mirror, a quick kiss on the cheek from you and then you’re off to do something in lumina square. he can’t help but to chuckle to himself as you walk away, thinking about how you have him absolutely wrapped around your finger.